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Home is on the horizon. The lantern light is bright as a beacon against the clouded black sky.
He’s made a late return. The sun has long set by now, and the warm glow from the cabin casts long shadows out over the snow, dark shapes that stretch into great inscrutable lines, that could be trees— that could be bodies lurking, hiding themselves in between trees, stalking. Hunting. He reaches without thinking to thumb over the totem in his inventory, familiar and smooth under the pads of his fingers, split by crevice on identical crevice, the same shape that it has always been. Phil shook a finger at him, pushed it into his hands on his way out the door, said, No reason to be an idiot, is there, when we’ve already gone to all the trouble of getting them. He closes his eyes and he is muscle and sinew reweaving, bones unshattering and blood unspilling, a murdered body rebuilding itself.
It’s shaping up to a pretty stormy night— he glances behind at his footsteps to see them filling up fast with fresh snow, and then he sets to walking again, closing the rest of the distance.
He leaves his coat at the door and keeps his boots on. They land heavily on the wooden floorboards, each step thumping and creaking. The sound settles his nerves— still a little wired, adventure-frayed— the same sound, the same cabin. The door falls shut behind him, heavy and solid, and he can still hear the wind whistling over the ice outside it.
There’s blackish-purple enderman blood on the floor, caked into the snow that falls off his boots. “Phil,” he calls out. “I’m home.”
He’s only half-expecting a response; when he doesn’t get one, he figures Phil’s just gone to bed already.
Spare sword in this chest, bucket in that one, key in the frame, and reset this trap on the door and then that one. There’s a clay pot on one end table in the living room that wasn’t there this morning, he’s pretty sure, a bundle of acacia blossoms tucked into it: little and bright yellow.
Phil is awake. He’s in the kitchen on hands and knees, crouched low to peer at the stove, whose redstone innards are spilled all over the tile floor. Damn thing’s been broken for days now; judging by the look on Phil’s face, he’s not making meaningful progress fixing it. This would explain the lack of response.
Techno drops the bundle of freshly-harvested pearls on the kitchen counter, where it lands with a damp thud.
Phil sits upright, startled, one hand shifting back toward the hilt of his sword— his eyes meet Techno’s, and he grins a wide, sharp grin, shoulders relaxing where they’d tensed minutely. He’s knelt at the base of the stove, its wiring exposed, redstone dust scattering the floor and streaked on both his hands. There’s a little on his face, too.
“Techno,” he says, soft and warm with relief. “Well, you’re certainly back late. I was starting to think you’d gone and died on me.”
“Ha, ha,” says Techno.
“Didn’t run into trouble, did you?” Phil’s tone isn’t— searching, exactly, but it’s not as light as it pretends to be. He bends over the wiring again to prod at it some more.
“Eh. Nothing I couldn’t handle,” says Techno.
“So there was trouble.” Phil glances up again. His smile’s gotten a little sharper.
“Only the usual,” says Techno. “Mobs, Phil, I had a run-in with a goddamn pillager patrol— like I said— nothing I couldn’t handle.” No pasts catching up to anybody just yet— no wars, no goddamned hunting parties, no more threats made good on— his gaze darts down toward Phil’s ankle before he can stop it, catches on the scar tissue there before darting back up. Phil’s still looking at him. He’s stopped fucking with the redstone. Techno suspects that he wasn’t making meaningful progress on it anyway.
“I’ll be honest, I didn’t think I’d find you awake,” Techno says after a moment of quiet. He’s certainly exhausted. He pulls one of the stools closer and sits down heavily, leaning against the counter.
“Barely awake,” Phil concedes. “Stove’s giving me too much fuckin’ trouble, can’t get it to make sense for the life of me, this damn repeater, bloody hell. I know it’s meant to be doing something important, but fuck’s sake, can’t even start to remember what that might’ve been… ”
Techno scrubs a hand down his face; he is definitely not in the mood for redstone debugging. “Absolutely not,” he says. “Not tonight. I can help you with this tomorrow.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Phil says, flashes him a quick grin. “You get to bed, then. Sleep. You need it. I’ll be there in an hour or so.”
“An hour or so?” Techno raises his eyebrows. “Phil.”
“Mm.” Phil is peering at the wiring again. Ignoring him.
“Aren’t you the one who’s always telling me to get some sleep?” Techno says. “And here you are, not getting any sleep. It's— what time is it? It’ll look better in the morning.”
“Mm.”
“Humming at me. Philza Minecraft."
"Technoblade."
Techno levels Phil with a glare that Phil cheerfully ignores. “You're coming to bed. You need sleep, I can tell,” he says in a tone that should brook no argument. Phil opens his mouth— presumably with an argument that he’d like brooked regardless— and Techno holds up a finger. “Nope. It’s late, I’m fuckin’ cold— the bed is warm. Warmer with you in it, that’s thermodynamics. Thermodynamics, Phil. You can’t argue with those, c’mon. I could just pick you up and carry you there, you know, you’re pretty small, wouldn’t be hard—”
“Oh, fuck you, mate,” says Phil, but he’s planting his hands on his knees and standing, leaving the scattered components of the stove behind him. “Fine, fine.”
“Your redstone’ll be there in the morning,” Techno says, and then he adds, wryly, “Taste of your own medicine, eh? How's that feel?”
There’s a flower in Phil’s hand that he tucks into Techno’s collar as he passes him, knuckles brushing the skin there for a moment, a cheeky little swagger in his step. Techno raises an eyebrow.
“Decorating me,” he says.
“It’s a present,” Phil says, and he strolls off down the hall, toward the bedroom. Carefully, delicately, Techno pinches the little flower in hand and squints at it. He’s never been much of a flower guy. Neither has— Phil? He thinks? He’s known the man a long damn time.
He hears the sound of a chest opening, closing, opening again— “Techno,” Phil yells down the hall, “What’d you do with the extra fuckin’ blankets?”
Phil wakes the next morning to an empty bed. He rolls over into the space that Techno should by all rights occupy, and he scowls at its distinctly unoccupied state.
It smells like him. Phil lies there a little while longer, and then he rolls all the way out of bed, landing light on his feet. The floor is cold.
He finds Techno in the kitchen, a stool pulled up to the counter. He’s dressed in light clothes, just a shift tucked into loose leather pants— not planning on going anywhere this morning, then. He looks relaxed, and that’s always a pleasant surprise. It's more and more common these days. “Morning, Phil,” he mumbles, not taking his eyes off the little contraption he’s bent over tinkering on.
“Good morning,” says Phil, squeezing Techno’s shoulder as he passes him— lingering for a moment— and then swinging one of the kitchen cabinet doors open to rifle through it. “What are we feeling this fine morning— are we feeling eggs? We’ve got plenty of eggs, shit, we’ve got— how do we have this many eggs. Did you make some improvements to the egg farm when I wasn’t looking?”
“You know me,” says Techno. “Egg farms, love ’em, gotta— maximize the egg efficiency— nah, I didn’t. It’s just always running. I could go for eggs.”
Phil doesn’t bother to ask whether Techno has already eaten this morning; he’d be pretty damn surprised if the answer was yes. He pulls out six eggs and then goes for the cookware, in the cabinet under the stove. There is a little bunch of acacia blossoms in a little clay pot on the countertop next to it— a charm for safety, or so he was told when he was small— acacia blossoms, a byproduct of wood-gathering, with stems good for weaving into wings before long journeys. Good for the pot on the kitchen counter, in this last damn sanctuary.
Looking at them, he feels that itch again.
It’s an old itch, one he hasn’t felt in the longest time, but it’s grown stronger out here, little by little— it’s something about a safe place, a warm place, a shelter from the elements and the things that lurk; something about the come-down, the bright striking relief after the long bloody haze of war— an urge that’s gotten strong enough to border on annoying, beckoning him close to home, down the path laid out by Techno’s compass. It’s a feeling that’s older than Phil is. He’s been putting flowers in little clay pots. He’s been making the damn bed more often.
“Omelettes,” says Phil, laying his six eggs out on the counter in a row next to one wooden bowl. “I’m feeling omelettes.”
“Sounds good,” Techno mumbles.
“What’ve you got there, is that one of the pearls?”
“Yep,” says Techno, squinting and peering closer to fiddle with the contraption he’s building around the pearl. “Doin' just fine.”
Phil blinks, parsing the answer, and then raises his eyebrows. “Mate, are you even listening to me?”
Techno pauses. “Yeah,” he says, and he huffs a little, not quite a laugh. “Sorry, yeah. Uh— pearls. Workshopping that last stasis chamber design.”
He coughs a little, embarrassed, and Phil feels his expression soften. “It’s all good,” he says.
“Yeah, you know me. Not— all there, all the time.”
“I’ve never liked you saying that,” Phil says, cracking the last of the eggs. Four, five, six. “You’re plenty there, mate. Pass me the whisk?”
“Yep,” says Techno, fumbling awkwardly around the counter for a minute before finding the whisk and passing it over.
Salt, pepper, a little butter, a few spices pulled from under the countertop and thrown in on a whim.
“What’s this?” Techno asks after a moment, and Phil turns to see him setting the pearl aside and plucking a bundle of wild yellow roses out of the little bowl Phil left them in. “More omelette ingredients? The traditional food of your people?” He pauses. “That was a bird joke.”
“Yeah, actually,” Phil says without missing a beat. Roses are good for vinegar and that’s good for wiping down the counters with, and yellow ones— well, if you’re going to make a home with someone— “Second one, you’ve got it. They’re edible, you know, nontoxic— we use them for, er— seasonings.”
Techno visibly flounders for a second, and Phil can barely resist the urge to double over cackling, but he does resist it, valiantly— a tiny little grin escapes.
“Seasonings,” Techno says. “Ah. That sounds delicious. What’s the, uh— the flavor profile here?”
“Oh, you know—” Phil is valiantly not dissolving into laughter. “You know— it’s, ah— earthy. That one’s known for earthiness. Bitterness. Earthy and bitter, that’s what you want in an herb.”
“Oh, earthy bitterness,” says Techno. “Not my favorite, I must unfortunately pass on the— earthy bitter herbs in my omelette this morning.” He’s suspicious. Phil has maybe given the game away.
In which case there’s nothing to do but lean in. “What, don’t be ridiculous,” says Phil. “In your omelette? You don’t put roses in omelettes. I’m not putting any roses in any omelettes. What are you, a heathen?”
“A heathen. An omelette heathen? I worship no omelette gods,” says Techno. “If that makes me a heathen, so be it. I’ll put whatever I want in my omelettes—”
“So you do want rose petals in here. That’s what I’m hearing.” Phil points to the bowl of whisked, omelette-ready eggs.
“No, I don’t want flowers in my eggs, Phil, it’s the principle of the thing, you called me a heathen— this is omelette anarchy, is what it is.”
Techno goes on and presumably plans to go on for awhile. Phil sets the bowl down and leans against the counter, folding his arms over his chest, an easy smile on his face.
“Phil,” Techno says a few minutes later as Phil pours the eggs into the pan on the stove, “are you— you know, forgive me if I’m wildly misinterpreting here, but are you planning to use the stove to cook these omelettes? I ask because you are currently pouring eggs into a pan which is on the stove, and I have the sneaking suspicion you may have forgotten—”
“Oh, fuck,” says Phil, pausing in his pouring to stare down at the stove, which he has absolutely still not fixed.
“Oh, my god,” says Techno.
“Shut up,” says Phil. “Shut up— and go find me a comparator. You’re helping me fix this and then we are having our fucking omelettes.”
With high noon comes the most sunlight they’re going to get all day, this far north— enough sunlight for a little building, a little gardening, a spar; it gleams off the iron trim of Techno’s shield as Phil cracks it in half.
He uses the momentum, leaps up with wings mantled, lands a crit with the wooden training ax— Techno grunts in pain, tanks it, then twists, reaching— Phil knows this move, and he’s not going to be caught off-guard so easily, but Techno ducks when he’s not expecting it, switches direction. Dodges Phil’s counter, choreography interrupted, surprise factor. Shit. Should’ve been prepared for that. Techno gets hold of his arm and flips him, throwing him toward the ground.
Phil’s head hits the stone with a thunk. Pain bursts through the back of his head. “Fuck,” he gasps, as Techno levels a wooden sword at his neck. He holds both hands up, dropping his ax. “Right, you got me, mate,” he says, panting. “Good one. Fuckin’ hell, you’re fast.”
Techno twirls the sword by the hilt and stabs it into the grass, then offers Phil a hand up. “Let’s get a potion on that,” he says, nodding to gesture at Phil’s— well— everything, and Phil grins.
“Hey, same to you,” he says. “Got a couple good hits in there.”
“Almost had me,” Techno agrees, grinning back.
Phil takes the hand up. The sun is bright and warm; he’s sweating from the spar, though the snow is cold against his skin. Techno’s hand is warm in his own, calloused and familiar— more familiar to Phil, maybe, than his own hands are.
They have forever out here, or something close enough to it— Phil has always said it is a when, not an if, but these days he thinks that inevitable end might be a good long time coming. Between then and now could be a hundred thousand years of days of sun and snow and spars, and little flowers with hidden meanings— tucked into clothes— planted in little clay pots.